“They have made it as if we have to have a Jewish state because of the Holocaust,” he told the Post.
“When the diplomats are brought to Yad Vashem, they are speechless. But
giving only security reasons for being here does not work with new
generations in Europe who care about rights. The other side’s incorrect
arguments about the land being theirs are more persuasive than the
pragmatic arguments about what would happen if there were no Jewish
state.”

Feiglin insisted that “The reason for the state of Israel, for our
existence, is not security, but our national goal. But the Holocaust
teaches us that we should always be strong, not only physically but also
morally.

“Without understanding the deep justification for our
existence here in the land of Israel, no army will help us. This is a
very important point.”

Unless one has spent several years here - and in particular unless one
has spent several Holocaust Memorial Days here - it is difficult to
understand the way in which the Zionist movement and the State of Israel
have made the Holocaust a part of the State. By making the Holocaust
into an occasion for Zionist (and not just for Jewish or personal)
mourning, the State of Israel has inadvertently brought about the
conclusion that it needs the Holocaust to justify its existence. Please
consider the following:

1. The day that was chosen for Holocaust
Memorial Day was the Hebrew date in 1953 that matched the Gregorian date
on which the Warsaw Ghetto fell. This date effectively excluded the
ultra-Orthodox community (whose members constituted the bulk of the
Holocaust victims) because it falls in the month of Nissan - a month in
which we do not mourn publicly. The Chief Rabbinate - which at the time
was in religious Zionist hands - urged making Holocaust Memorial Day on
the 10th day of the month of Tevet - a day that is already observed as a
fast day in the Jewish calendar. They lost that battle.

2. The
official title of Holocaust Memorial Day in Hebrew is Yom HaShoa
v'HaGvura - Holocaust and Heroism Day. Until recent years, most of the
day's official events related to resistance in the ghetto - as if there
were something shameful about people who were slaughtered without
resisting. It was almost as if the Holocaust victims were expected to
perform as an army. This was also offensive to many in the religious
community, who believe that the Holocaust was God's will for reasons
that we cannot and will not understand. More about that here.

3.
The State has taken upon itself to track down and punish Nazi murderers
- most notably Adolf Eichman and, in recent years, John Demjanjuk (who
was actually acquitted here). The Nazi and Nazi Collaborators Punishment
Law (1950) gives the State the power to punish those who committed
crimes against the Jewish people (and was probably the first instance of
a State claiming extra-territorial jurisdiction). Similarly, the
government negotiated with the West German government to obtain
reparations for the Jewish people as a whole. Ben Gurion regarded the
State of Israel as the successor to the Holocaust victims. Not that
there's anything wrong with that, but the State's co-opting of the
Holocaust narrative as part of its historical narrative (as opposed to
it being more generally part of the narrative of the Jewish people),
could lead someone like Obama to the wrong conclusion.

4. The
State of Israel doesn't observe the anniversaries of any pogroms
perpetrated by Tsarist Russia (for example). The only 'Memorial Days'
here are for the Holocaust and for fallen soldiers. In fact, in recent
years, there has been controversy in Israel over the closing of places
of entertainment on Tisha b'Av, the date that the Holy Temples were both
destroyed, and the only other day of the year on which places of
entertainment are (or were in Tel Aviv) required to be closed.

Now obviously, there's a lot more to it than that, and just as obviously
the Arab countries have an interest in portraying Israel's existence as
being justified solely by the Holocaust so that they can claim that
they are being forced to pay for Europe's iniquities. But the extent to
which the State of Israel has made the Holocaust into a Zionist event to
the exclusion of every other instance of Jewish suffering may
unfortunately help the Arab narrative gain wider acceptance than it
would otherwise.

And why did Israel's founders use the Holocaust
as a justification for founding the State of Israel? Because they were
trying to be like all the other nations. Many of them were trying to
flee from God and from what they called the 'religion of the diaspora,'
and so they could not bring themselves to use the real justification for
there being a state of Israel, and for it to be specifically located on
the land of Israel - the Jewish homeland - and not in Uganda or
anyplace else. The Jewish people have owned the land of Israel for more
than 3000 years. Wherever and whenever they went anywhere else they
prayed to return to the land of Israel. The land of Israel was given to
us by God. That is the only 'justification' forthe reason why Jews should live in the land of Israel.

We don't need the Holocaust to 'justify' our being here. We need only three words:

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About Me

I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-three years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 10 to 31 years and seven grandchildren. Our eldest daughter and eldest son are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com